


Cracked Eggshells (of a Phoenix)

by im_the_king_of_the_ocean



Category: Trollhunters (Cartoon)
Genre: Dark, Depression, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Mental Health Issues, Mildly Dubious Consent, There is no redemption for Strickler here, Unhealthy Relationships, inability to change
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-03
Updated: 2018-10-05
Packaged: 2019-07-24 14:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16177313
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/im_the_king_of_the_ocean/pseuds/im_the_king_of_the_ocean
Summary: The darker aspects of the relationship of Barbara and Walter.Or what if Walter never changed his behavior or became good.





	1. Cracked Eggshells

“I won’t do it again” Walter says, the first time.

Barbara nods.It’s still a shock.There’s a red spot on her cheek from where he slapped her and a little pain, but it’s not bad.Not really.They were having an argument.It got a little heated.That was all.

“I just want to protect you,” he says.“I know you can look after yourself, but there’s some things out there that are beyond your comprehension.”

She wonders why he doesn’t explain them, then.But, she supposes, it’s like asking him to not make stories out of his past deeds— _transgressions_ —to entertain dinner guests.Some things are just not in his skill set.

Barbara can forgive that, yes?

Most days they get along just wonderfully anyway.All sunshine and clear skies.He offers her compliments for almost everything she does.After each and every work story, he praises her good heart or her quick decisive mind.In the beginning she enjoys it.It’s been years since anyone has made her feel, feel _flattered_ like this.Her heart leaps for joy that someone she finds as attractive as Walt views her this way.

But then a small something will come along.A minor situation, like a coworker giving her a deserved critique, and he’ll immediately jump to her defense.State how perfect she is (compared to him).At first she thinks he’s joking, but then she’ll realize he isn’t.

That night, his kisses seem a little less sweet.

It’s then that she begins to realize just what she means to him.

_“For, without you, there is no world.”_

He would never (intentionally) hurt her, but he’d let the world burn for her.

She sees the results.Feels them.He thinks she doesn’t know, but she’s a ER doctor.The first time one limped into the emergency room, she didn’t believe it.But then, the story repeats.Again and again.

Anyone who insults her, who looks at her the wrong way, ends up getting hurt.In _pain_.

People start getting extremely careful around her.They don’t know.Not really.But they do.

One by one her friends leave.She’s fun, they say, but she comes with a massive shadow.

Things _happen_ around her.

When Barbara finally confronts Walter about it, he gets angry.She flinches.That makes his eyes go wide.He takes her in his arms and soothes.

“There are some things that are hard for me,” Walt whispers.“After so many centuries of the same, change is difficult.But I want to.More than anything.For you, I want to.”

It’s a sentiment everyone she talks to now (the ones who didn’t leave; Nana, the Nunezes) finds deeply romantic.A man is willing to alter himself, his very being, for her.She should be flattered.

She says she is, but sometimes she’s not.

Change is good.A man recognizing past toxic behaviors and changing his ways is good.She does like that part.

Yet, they always seem to find themselves back at the start, where she has a red mark on her cheek and unshed tears.

She learned not to cry.That only makes him want to comfort her, to soothe and smooth things over.

Like they never happened at all.

Like something inside doesn’t still hurt.

He never actually apologizes, Barbara realizes.His explanations are golden, air-tight.But, for all he rationalizes, he never actually states the words, “I am sorry.”

At first, she brushes it off.He’ll learn, in time.But the more time goes on, the more she wonders.There are so many instances that go by where he _could_ have learned.She brings it up each time.She hopes.

_Please, please recognize just how much you’ve hurt me._

He responds by making clever quip after clever quip and changing the subject.

_That’s_ a change he excels at.

She’s learns to stop stating her discomfort when he does.He just gets mad then.

“Barbara, you have to understand, that this is _hard_ for me.I can’t just change overnight after _centuries_.”

“It’s been three years, Walt.I just want—”

“I will do better, I promise.”He puts his hands on her shoulders.Turns her head to face him when she looks away.“I promise.I love you.”

She’s the center of his world.Something everyone finds deeply moving and romantic.She did too, at some point that she now can’t place the exact date of.That has to count for something, yes?

The old habits, the ones she adopted when James was still around, come back easily.

Barbara breaks down sobbing when she realizes she wished Walter never come back through that door.

He finds her, comforts her, whispers she’ll never disappoint him.

She does.

He’s not the jealous type.He’s protective.She stays out later than she expects getting drinks with old friends—a few who don’t know—to catch up.It feels good— _freeing—_ that she doesn’t have to monitor what they (what she) says.

He comes after her and reprimands her for making him worry.She thinks he’s teasing.He’s not, but she’s too drunk to notice the difference.

The next day he gives her a lecture.The next time he drives her and picks her up.

She begins to walk on eggshells.

No one notices that for his loudness, she falls more and more silent.Not that there’s many left _to_ notice.

She has to be the center of his world.For, without her, what’s to stop him from destroying it?Who would he become if not for her?If she fails to be what he wants her to be?What even is that?

This is her job.Her role.Support him until he changes (whenever—if ever—that happens).

_Changes into what?_ she wonders but doesn’t say, because she doesn’t want to.If she has hope that things will be good in the future, everything now will be worth it.

When he proposes, he puts the binding spell down between them.He wants to be connected to her again.

She panics.

He doesn’t understand why it bothers her.That’s in the past, he apologized (more or less), they’ve moved on, yes?

She tries to explain trauma to him.He scoffs.

“How can someone as wonderful as you be weighed down by such things, Barbara?”

The eggshells crack.


	2. The Things That Won't Go Away

She learns to listen for when he’s coming.

She doesn’t even notice, at first, that she does it.It just makes sense.It’s better to know where he is than not.Better to be prepared, just in case.

Barbara never admits to herself what that “just in case” is.She doesn’t want to.

It’s nothing.She’s being silly.Silly Barbara doesn’t know what real danger is.She doesn’t live with a mountain lion, after all.

Yet, her ears perk up whenever she hears his car pull into the driveway, his keys jingle in the lock.If she’s been relaxing, she tenses.Every fiber of her being waits.

Walter’s footsteps echo through the empty house, a reminder that they’re alone.That no one else is there.

She’s on her own.

Barbara has taught herself not to jump when he wraps his arms around her and plants a kiss on her cheek.

She still loves him.Deeply.

But that doesn’t change the fact she’s terrified of him.

His touch is usually gentle, soft.But sometimes, while he kisses her, his claws will move across her belly and leave the slightest of scratches.She always pulls up her shirt and stares at them in the bathroom mirror afterwards.

They’re nothing.She imagines what would happen if he’d applied slightly more pressure, anyway.Blood.Guts.Gore.

Barbara grimaces, goes to bed, and curls up under covers as if the extra blankets will make her safer.

Some nights, Walter stands in the entrance of her bedroom.He never speaks, only watches her.His face hidden in darkness, as the only light is that of the hall one, behind him.

Barbara tries speaking to him a couple times when he does this, but he never says anything back.Silently, he’ll come into the room.The bed will shift to his added weight.

He’ll reach over.She’ll feel his hand capture whichever of her breasts is nearest to him and knead it.

The first time she was exhausted after a long shift, and so pushed his hand away.It came back some minutes later.Always soft.Always gentle.But persistent.Now, she tells herself she’s always in the mood.

She loves him.She does.Really.

She’s not sure if he does in return, or if he just _wants_ her.

Does it matter?

Without him, she’d have no one.Without him, she’d be all alone in an empty house where she once raised a son (who is gone now).Without him, all she’d have is work, tiredness, and an ocean of takeout boxes.

Something is better than nothing, and he’s something.

He loves her.

Probably.

She’s long since stopped wondering about change.There is no point.What’s the use when all she hears is the same explanations trotted out again and again?Though, always worded differently.Walter is very clever when it comes to words.

Life blurs together.She spends most of it in her head, daydreaming about this, that, or the other.She never had a particularly good imagination, but for once her tendency toward absentmindedness comes in handy.

Barbara doesn’t realize she’s given up until one day, at the hospital, when she’s in the bathroom, she looks at her reflection in the mirror for the first time in an eternity.She doesn’t recognize the person who slowly blinks back.She’d always been rather thin, but never this _gaunt_.Her skin is ashen.Her eyes are beyond exhausted.

She doesn’t really remember what happens next.Her heartbeat had thundered so loudly.She’s told later by the doctors who find her, she collapsed and that, when they came to help her up, she fought them and screamed.

She vaguely remembers someone forcing an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.The anesthesia seeping into her brain.She fights against it, for her own consciousness, but it wins in the end.The world goes away.

Barbara’s groggy when she wakes up.But she’s alone, truly alone, and she doesn’t mind that at all.Though she’s slightly concerned about being in a hospital room.

One of her fellow doctors comes in and things begin to make a little more sense.

“When was the last time you ate?”He asks.

She can’t remember.

“What about liquids?Hydration?”

She can’t remember.

“How long have you been severely depressed?”

That ones takes her by surprise.She blinks at him.She’s not depressed.She’s happy.Really, she is.Neither she nor him believe her.

She’s malnourished, he says.They want to keep her there for a few days to make sure she gets her strength back up and to look into other possible reasons for her collapse and outburst.She agrees.

After giving her a few more details for her treatment plan, the doctor leaves.

Barbara closes her eyes.

All is quiet.

But somewhere outside the window, birds are singing.That’s rather nice.


	3. Healing Is Complicated

Barbara gets a dog when she moves out of the recovery center and in to the apartment in Los Angeles.A big German Sheperd.A sweetheart of an animal really, but also one who isn’t afraid to bar her teeth at strangers.She names the dog, Daffodil.It’s silly and sweet, but that’s honestly what Barbara needs right now.

Walter doesn’t know where she is, but the extra protection is still nice.She doesn’t know what she’ll do if he comes for her.Not really.Everything is so confusing these days.It takes almost all her energy just to get to the grocery store and back without an anxiety attack.

Barbara doesn’t want to think about Walter.

He came to see her when she’d been admitted to the hospital.He’d shown the proper amount of concern, and she didn’t doubt that it was indeed genuine.It was the doctors, her coworkers, who noticed the way she reacted to him, the way his presence caused her stress.They began to ask questions, first gently and then probing.They made up excuses in the form of “hospital regulations” to keep him away from her.After she began to improve, they snuck her away to a recovery center in LA.

Walter always underestimated the ingenuity and strength of human beings.

Barbara can’t go back to Arcadia.The very thought makes her stomach twist and fills her with dread.She doesn’t trust herself not to return to Walter if she did.Despite it all, she loves him.It breaks her heart not to go back.It would be so, so easy to just walk back into that house— _her—_ house, let him take her in his arms, and tell her she’d been foolish to ever try and run away.

“Shhh, everything is fine now.I’ll look after you.”He’d say.

Some days, the hardest ones, she yearns for those words.

But then, those days pass.She takes Daffodil for a walk, enjoys the sunshine.Things won’t be completely right, but she won’t yearn as much.

Barbara begins to realize just how much she’d lost herself in the past few years.It feels like the person she’d once been, who had existed where she did now, was gone and she, messed up and broken, just sort of took the life of someone else—someone _happier_.

Not that she is as depressed now.She’s working on that.She sees a therapist regularly and takes antidepressants.Those help.At the very least, they force her to eat breakfast regularly, since she’s supposed to take one little pill each morning with some food.

The fact is Barbara doesn’t know how to get better.Better from _what_?She asks herself.She’d been in love, hadn’t she?She had a comfortable life, a good job, someone who cared about her.What else did she need?Why does she stay here?Why doesn’t she go back?She should just go back.

But she doesn’t.Every time she sits in her car, determined to make the drive back to Arcadia, she never turns the key in the ignition.She just sits there.Maybe for an hour.Watching the time tick by.Then, she gets out of the car, goes back inside, and hugs Daffodil.Sometimes, she cries.

The first time Barbara is truly happy that she can remember since before everything with the trolls, she’s in an art class.

Like everything else, it was hard to paint at first.But then, Barbara buys blank canvases and a few paints from a store nearby her apartment.She may not go outside often (at all), but doing absolutely nothing makes her fidgety.

Then, after a few weeks and such accomplishments as managing to regularly get to the grocery store each week and adopting Daffodil, her therapist convinces her to try out an art class.Or, at least going to one once.Dr. Monroe recognizes Barbara has anxiety issues with leaving her apartment (out of fear that Walter, who’s likely searching for her, will actually find her), but it’s her life.In a way, as long as she keeps hiding, he still controls it.

So, after they discuss possible scenarios wherein Walter does find her, how she’ll handle it, and brainstorming solutions, Barbara goes to an art class.And, it’s fun.It’s nice to be around other people, even if she doesn’t exactly talk to them.It’s nice to focus on how the paintbrush feels in her hand.It’s nice to smile again.

It’s a different life, the one she leads in LA, but she grows to be fond of it.

Gradually, tiny bit by tiny bit, Barbara stops hurting.

The ones who do find her eventually are Jim and Blinky.Walter contacts them (when he has no luck locating her).The hospital staff then make them aware of most parts of the situation, and Barbara herself tells them the rest.Jim is angry, but she convinces him not to go after Walter.The man really isn’t worth their time.

Barbara takes great joy showing her son and his mentor around LA (with the aid of glamour masks, of course).She takes them to the dog park where she and Daffodil go to exercise in the mornings.She shows them the art studio where her classes are and which of her paintings are going to be in a showing in a week or two.Finally, she leads them to the small, local clinic she volunteers at some days.

She smiles to herself as Jim plays with Daffodil and actually laughs when Blinky tells a joke over dinner.

They decide to sell the house in Arcadia.With Jim in New Trollmarket on the east coast and her here in LA, they don’t really need it.And, anyway, if they ever do return to their old hometown, Barbara wants a new home.One where she can start fresh, without any lingering shadows.

She meets Walter once on the street in Arcadia, during their visit to gather their belongings from the house and prepare it for the new owners.He opens his mouth to offer yet another excuse (or something).She stops him, tells him she forgives him (mostly so she, personally, can move on), and, if he ever comes near her again, she’ll file a restraining order (a troll one, which Blinky tells her has far worse consequences if broken than a human one).

Then, Barbara leaves.She’s not completely better.She’s unsure she’ll ever be.She still has bad depression days.An anxiety attack here or there.She’s certainly not the person she was before.She’ll never be that person again.But she has a family, new friends, a goofy, drool-y dog.A new life.A different life.

It’s worth living again.


End file.
